Smiarowski Farm Stand Whately Prep p. 46

http://smiarowskifarm.com

I offer to take Ingrid, Kayla and Kendra for ice cream. 

“I”m about to leave my office now. I’ll just put on something less formal and we can head down to the Smiarowski’s Farm Stand in Sunderland.”

 “I would love that.  I was looking at the map. Is that on the other side of the River?”

“Yes, it will give you a different view of the area.  And Smiarowski’s had both hard and soft serve.  They’ve got you covered. On another note, did the girls like the campus?”

“We want to tell you all about our impressions when we see you.  Do you think we could see one of the boarder’s rooms before we head back to the Vineyard?”

“Absolutely.  If you are willing to stay until Monday, I can have Kendra talk to our Admissions Director and she can have an informal interview.  That will give you time to learn about the nuts and bolts.  I hate to steal you away from Martha’s Vineyard, though.”

“No, this makes me a lot more comfortable.  Let’s talk about staying. So the girls and I will be ready to go in about twenty minutes, that about right?”

“Perfect. I’ll toot my horn when I’ m all set to go. You should hear it up in the guest apartment.” 

I  had spent the early part of the afternoon writing up reports as well as a community email about the swan’s brutal murder. How am I going to put a “spin” on that for Ingrid, I wonder?  Would I let my child attend school where there was an incident such as this one? Whenever I am faced with difficult questions and challenging decisions, I find myself reflecting upon what my father would have done were he here.  Often, that helps.  I have a great deal of respect for the Head of Emma Willard School in Troy, N.Y..  We call each other from time to time to discuss topics that range from improving the quality of food, plagiarism on campus and finding professional clothes that flatter and do not look frumpy.  I did not call today because I did not want to disrupt her weekend anymore than necessary.

Whately Prep is starting to have a trickle of administrators and staff arrive.  They are officially due on campus tomorrow. We lease space to an English as a Second Language Program for students from the Pacific Rim countries as well as a nationally known Tennis Academy.  The Academy raises the bar for large numbers of students over the course of he summer.  Both programs last about eight weeks.  They will be clearing out, dorms will be turning over, in the third week of August.  Pre-season athletes return to campus a week later.  The academic year starts two weeks later.  This cycle of comings and goings stays fairly fixed year-to-year.  The current addition of graveyard mischief and fowl mayhem adds a wrinkle that will have to be addressed aggressively so it does not get out of hand.  My instinct is to call in outside help.  Robert Parker has done some work for us in the past; he’s a P.I. who finds run-aways, truant spouses, missing money.  He’s the kind of guy whom it is nice to have on your side.  I will call him from the house.

As I start up the walk to my front door, I see UPS must have delivered a package. As I get closer, I see that the small, brown box is wrapped and addressed with my name.  It strikes me as odd that there is no return address, However, we are relaxed on our campus.  Perhaps, too lax.  If I stepped over the package and unlatched the door, I am ninety percent sure that I left it unlocked.  I reach in my purse and pull out my set of keys.  I use one to break the seal of the tape. I set the box on a small outdoor table that fits nicely on the porch. As I pry back the flaps of the box, it takes me several beats before I process what I am seeing.  When I am certain that I have identified it correctly, I drop the box, vault down the steps, and lose my lunch in the bushes in front of the house.  I fumble with my phone and call Carl.  

“I need you.”

I edge back to the porch where the box lay on its side.  The contents have spilled out; the swan’s heart is sealed in a ziplock bag with a note. “Yours next.”

My legs wobble. I sit down hard on the front steps, with my hands folded,  elbows on knees.  I suppose this means no Smiarowki’s Farm.  

All in a Name Whately Prep p. 42

dee

Kendra is only fifteen!  I am really not sure she is ready to go away to boarding school. It is all so New England. These families send their children off to be raised by someone else.  Marcus thinks it will build independence and that Kendra will make lifelong friends.  He says the network is invaluable.  What do I know? I am a California girl. Sunshine, fast cars, beaches, families who argue loudly and with spirit and families who  never stop talk to each other. Marcus would let Kendra go in a heartbeat.  And I wonder how life would be for Kayla, at home with just the two of us?  Would that be a good thing for her?  

This is a freakin’ big decision.  Julia brought us to Whately Prep and has made certain we have had a tour of the entire campus.  She suggested that the three of us walk up to the apiary.  It’s near the top of the hill heading toward Quonquont Farm.  The many names that are from Native American roots leave me awkwardly shaping words in my mouth. Hammonassett, Mohegan, Narragansett,  Pequot, Wampanoag, Pocumtuck, Metacomet.  The Polish immigrants brought with them their diligent work ethic and names consisting of many vowels.  Krakowski, Janowitch, Wcislo, Nowak, Paskevich.  Julia suggested we all meet for lunch in the school's dining common.

“Are you girls ready?”  I ask Kayla and Kendra.  It’s a short walk, let’s go buy some honey.”

“Buy honey?  I thought we were going to an apiary,” says Kayla.

“And what do they have at apiaries, Kayla?”  

“Birds, of course.”

I quickly turn away so she doesn’t catch my smile.  Oh, the drama if she thinks I am laughing at her!

Kendra uses a condescending tone when she drawls, “Don’t you mean an aviaary?”

“Whatever. Let’s go, already.”

We walked single file up the narrow road leading toward the center of Whately.  As I took in the bucolic view of this town, I could imagine Kendra making a life here.  

No Bikes Whately Prep p. 37

I text Amanda around 9 a.m..

“Meet you at No Bikes in 15.  Head for the hills.”

“make it 20. mom needs me for chores :-\”

“Cnt xcape?”

“def not.”

“20, No Bikes, Hills."

Amanda is waiting for me when I get to the spot on the sidewalk we designated as half-way between our families’ Campground houses.  The words are repainted every year.  They have to be done by the beginning of the Season, July 1st.  A paintbrush hasn’t touched them since this time last year. They are faded, but our memory of them has not.  For us, the words are easy to find.  

Whenever we are both on the Vineyard together, we find ways to sneak out to hang together.  I have known Amanda since she was five and I was six years old.  Now that I am fourteen and she is thirteen, there is a new dimension to our time together.  All I can say is that it’s different, but it is still fun.  I can sit with her and read for an afternoon and feel like we did something cool.  We have promised each other not to let the boy/girl thing ruin a good thing. So far, so good. Her family is from New Jersey. She stays for the whole summer. 

I see her for the sporadic weeks that my family uses our house. 

I visited her twice in New Jersey with my parents, and last year, I took the bus by myself. They picked me up at Penn Station.  Her parents brought her to visit me while they went skiing a few years ago.  I think they were really impressed by Mom’s job and Whately Prep.  They are thinking of sending Amanda to Whately Prep in tenth grade.  That would be cool.

We set off toward Sunset Lake.  We call the small elevation above Sunset Lake, the Hills.  It’s a kind of play on the t.v. show about some Beverly Hills high school kids.  There are a bunch of benches on the hill and we sit up there for an hour at a time.  We can see Sunset Lake, the houses on the outer ring of the Methodist Campgrounds, the Oak Bluffs harbor and even the Vineyard Sound beyond the jetties.  The season, the weather and the time of day change the view profoundly.  While sitting on the benches we talk about big issues and small issues and even smaller issues.  All of the dialogue runs freely without censure.  If we have a disagreement that lasts more than a couple of hours, it is rare.

Neither of us have it in our natures to stay angry very long.  We both feel like we can count on each other.  One of our more stupid stunts was when seven-year old Amanda had the chicken pox, I went over to her house, snuck up the back stairs to her bathroom and -- oh, so disgusting - brushed my teeth with her tooth brush.  Forty-eight hours later, I was sick.  Two days later, Julian and my Dad had the chicken pox, too.  Luckily, Sarah wasn’t born yet.

Another example of our fun times was when we microwaved an egg.  It exploded. It exploded all over the inside of the microwave.  We thought we cleaned it perfectly, but her mother caught on as soon as she walked into the kitchen.  She said, quite simply, that she smelled trouble.  More like she smelled hard-boiled eggs.  

I count on my friendship with Amanda.  There is nobody else like her in my life.  I know enough not to talk about it with my guy friends. They wouldn’t understand. No Bikes and Amanda are mine.

The Trunk Whately Prep p.36

              The Trunk                 dee

I see Kelly.  She is in Gillian’s bedroom, sitting on her bed. 

She is in Gillian’s kitchen.

She is on Gillian’s porch.

Kelly has not been so pervasively present since she died. I have to believe this is tied to Gillian’s death. Nothing of this nature occurred when my father died.  Unless....unless...

I don’t want this thought to enter my head, but it is there before I can slam shut the door.

Unless, it is related to Carl.

I wrestle inwardly with this idea. Trying to think without words is a tool I use to slow down the steady, relentless parade of paranoid thoughts.  I try to jump between emotions, skimming the surface like a smooth, flat stone across the face of the sea.

Moving on, I button up the denim work short and slip on my sneakers, no socks. I can’t bear to pull on my soggy, sweat-drenched underwear -- so I go alfresco. A bit risque for the Head of an elite boarding school, but the one thing I can claim about my ascendency to the Head’s position is that I have not compromised who I am along the way.  I have capitulated and finessed and sometimes compromised, yes, even my principles, but not who I am.  It gives me some small satisfaction, like I am owner of this make and model of Julia Dickinson.  

The shirt falls to mid-thigh.  I stand on the edge of the tub and peer in the small medicine cabinet mirror.  My legs are passable, even as the years creep forward to a final accounting, my legs are withstanding time.  Maybe not so much my face...

My eyes are swollen from crying. I finger-comb my hair into its blunt-edged page boy cut.  A few wispy bangs hide my high forehead. My face, according to every magazine I have ever trusted, is an oval shape.  To my mind, that’s as boring as oatmeal.  A lot of people have told me my face has symmetry that is “pleasing,” that I am “attractive.”

Superlatives are not wasted on me. Especially after an hour crying jag submerged in water.  My fingers have the white, wrinkly appearance of a child’s skin after spending too much time in the pool.  When I open the bathroom door, I am assaulted by the smell from that god-awful trunk. 

Carl appears at the top of the stairs with two mugs of tea.  The teabags are artfully looped over each handle so as not to fall  completely into the water.  I sniff and catch myself thinking, “How metrosexual of him.”  

“Are you ready for this?” I gesture toward the room with my chin.

“I am, if you are.”

“Thanks for the tea.  Chamomile?”

“Chamomile with lavender.”  Metrosexual.

“I have a Hefty garbage bag.” He holds it and a pair of gloves up for me to see.

“Then, again, I was thinking I could carry the whole thing outside and we could open it there, instead.”

I walk into the room and find I gag a bit.

We both step back into the hall and shut the door. 

“Plan B.”

We go downstairs, pass Kelly in the hall and sit in the living room. 

“Let’s have our tea. Then, there’s Vick’s in the bathroom, we’ll rub that under our noses.  The trunk has handles.  We’ll carry it outside together.  Whatever is in there does not belong in the house, no matter what.”

“Okay.  I like that.  No wonder you run this place.”

“Be real, you suggested it.”

“I’m just brown-nosing.  You are the boss, after all.”

We sit quietly and drink our tea. Kelly settles on the stool at my feet.

If Carl is aware of her presence, he is a mighty good poker player.

When we enter the room housing the trunk the next time, we are prepared. We have tied cloth napkins around our faces after dapping some Vick’s Vaporub under our noses.  We are both wearing work gloves; Carl’s are yellow, rubber dish gloves and mine are ancient, leather, gardening gloves.  Years of wear has molded them into the shape of Gillian’s hands. I am conscious of my breezy state of undress every step of the way as we wrestle the foul-smelling trunk down the stairs.

Outside, the trunk lid opens readily.  Before I look inside, I notice Kelly sitting in a cherry tree with prominent, gnarled limbs.  From her vantage point, the trunk’s contents are readily visible. Her expression gives nothing away.

Stepping forward gives me a better view.  Carl suddenly bolts behind the cherry tree.  I can't see him, but I can hear him retching. 

The trunk is packed, literally crammed, with road kill.  The animals themselves are indistinguishable from each other. They are in various stages of decomposition. Maggots are rolling and sliding over each other in a sickening feeding frenzy.

The lid has words branded into the wood.  Gillian must have used a soldering iron or a similar tool to etch the words, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”

I think those words told the whole story. Gillian was a huge fan of animals of all kinds.

She must have gone out early every morning, scoured the roads of Whately for maimed and killed animals.  With a shovel, she would dispatch the survivors,  

I turn away from the horror of her collection.

Stiff-jointedly, I walk to the other side of the house. My legs buckle just as I reach the porch,  

Night has fallen.  I hear the slam of the trunk lid falling shut. Carl must have pushed shut the lid. He appears by my side.  “Let’s get out of here,” he says.  Lacing his fingers in mine, he pulls me to my feet,  Together, we lock the front door.  I drop his hand before we step back onto the main campus.  

“ Will you have your guys throw the entire trunk in to the dumpster?  I don’t have it in me to me to follow through on this one. I need to go home." I stop and turn, forcing him to stop walking, too.  

"It is important that this thing - whatever we call it - between us, remains just between us.  You get that, right?

Carl half-smiles, a sad grin. “I do.”

I walk home alone, touched by his willingness to let me go. 

A Tree Rodent Whately Prep p. 34

www.wonderfulworldofimages.webs.com

The door to Gillian’s house is ajar.  It seems odd that Julia would leave the door open. Maybe she was distracted when she came in? I push it open wider using three fingers,

“Julia, are you in here?”  I enter, and pull closed the door.

No answer.  

It is just past eight o’clock and dusk is settling in.  Night is riding on dusk’s tails -- I can tell by the color of the sky in the east.  While the westerly view is rosy, the easterly sky is 

the rich indigo of a king’s robe. The house smells considerably better than it did in the morning. My footfalls on the wooden floor are unseemingly loud.  My voice intrudes on the silence.

“Hey, Julia? Are you here?”

Overhead, I hear the sound of a book drop.  Not wanting to scare her, I almost stomp on the stair treads so Julia will hear me coming.  

I call out when I reach the second floor landing, “Julia, it’s Carl.  Where are you?”  Based on the sound of the book, I put her in the bedroom with excessive stacks of books. I push open the door, “Aha! I found you!” I say.  It becomes apparent pretty quickly that she is not in there.  I see a stack of books that have been upended.  They are within inches of the window, I try to remember if there was a stiff breeze in the afternoon.  The room appears empty.  I am just out the door when another stack tips over.  I turn around and stare. What on earth?  Then, I catch a glimpse of a small red squirrel. There is no more than a three inch tear in the window’s screen.  Quickly, I pull the door shut so the squirrel doesn’t have more room to play.  I tromp back down the stairs. 

The kitchen pantry has a broom and a dustpan. Gloves are under the sink.  However, I need something to contain the squirrel.  Call me squeamish, but I want my arms covered and a mask.  They are nothing more than tree rodents as far as I am concerned.  I flip the switch for the basement.  The entire basement is empty except for one corner that has an elaborate workbench.  I am, somehow, not surprised that Gillian owned a trap and stored it under the workbench.  A man’s denim work shirt --sized too big for me --is hanging on the pegboard over the workbench.  I grab it, as well as a face mask from her toolbox.  

Heading back upstairs, I check the front door. It is still shut.

Again, “JULIA??”  Nothing.

I dress in my makeshift protective garb and enter the library/bedroom.  More stacks have tumbled.  It makes moving difficult. There is limited space for my feet.  I open the window as wide as it goes, removing the screen completely.  The best outcome would be for the squirrel to depart on its own volition.  Its little head pops up from a perch on the bedpost.  I use the broom to herd the creature toward the window. With an agility that surprised me, the squirrel leaps from bedpost to window ledge.  Apparently,  it gauged the imminent impact of the broom.  Gingerly, I creep closer to the window. I hope to push him on his way.  A chestnut tree is an easy two yards from the window.  The squirrel appears frozen.  Just as I raise the broom, it dives across the chasm between house and tree.  Once it lands on the tree, the squirrel turns back, chatters loudly, then takes off, disappearing in the tree’s dense foliage.  I slam shut the window with more force than I intend and a crack appears in the glass.  Damn.

In the hallway, I remove the gloves, the mask and the shirt.  A gutteral sound catches my attention.  My first thought it that another squirrel has invaded the house.  That seems far-fetched.  I open the closest door, the bathroom door.  

The room is alit with candles.  There are at least twenty candles flickering.  The window is open and a slight cross-breeze is set into motion when I open the door. The tub is full. Bubbles fill it to the top.  Julia is submerged with just a small halo of her face visible.  Her eyes are shut and she is sobbing.  The water mimics the motion of the sobs as they wrack her body.  No wonder she didn’t hear me.

Abruptly, her eyes open.  She looks right through me.  Her misery is that complete. On the floor, I see her running shoes and shorts. She extends her hand from the cover of bubbles.  I roll up a towel and kneel next to the tub.  Taking her hand, I kiss the back of it, then her palm.  Her nose is running.  She wipes it with her other hand. We stay like that for ten minutes.  Then she sits up. 

“Do you want some water?” Julia nods.

I run the water until its cold, then hand her a glass.  

“I think you should dry off and I’ll make up some tea. Do you have anything else to put on?”

She shakes her head.  

I go into the hall and retrieve her aunt’s denim large work shirt.  

“Is this okay?”  She nods solemnly.

“Come down and we will talk.”

The Bath Whately Prep p.35

The magazine left a message requesting that I FedEx back some of the hardcopy I was marking up.  I was a bit annoyed by their intrusion on our family time; however, I didn't want to slow down production. 

"Kids? Who wants to go for a walk?  Come on, turn off the t.v.."  The more I think about it, the more I embrace the idea. 

"Come on, bugs-in-a-rug, let's get going."  

Ever since learning that Gillian passed, I can’t settle.  The universe has shifted with her passing. I want to be back home with Julia. I told her I planned to pack up the kids and join her.  She was adamant that she wanted to be join us on the Island and she’d be down Saturday. Gillian would have a memorial service, according to her wishes, in the fall when the students return to school.  As organized as she was, her death was orchestrated as tightly as opening night with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  

I had defer to Julia because I want her to be at ease with the situation. I know the strain this loss places on her.

I wanted to ask if she has informed her mother, but I didn’t have it in me to face whatever emotional content that might release.  We kept our conversation short.

With very little urging, the kids agree to walk down to the Oak Bluffs harbor. At the far end, we will drop my package in the Federal Express Box that sits in the Our Market lot.  Sarah toddles alongside the stroller for the half mile walk to the Fed -Ex box.  Sarah insists that she drop the package in the box while I hold her up.  After that excitement, she is too tired to continue.  She climbs into her stroller willingly.  Marshall agrees to push Sarah, which surprises me because it is not the coolest thing for an adolescent boy to be seen doing.  We stop at Mad Martha’s for three ice creams; Sarah is already asleep. When we get home, I try reaching Julia after I get Julia tucked in. No answer.  I would be concerned, but I know when life is hardest for her, she retreats to water.  She’s probably in her bath.

Whately Prep; a novel of mystery, revenge, and intrigue

dee

Recently, someone asked me what I intended to do when I completed the year commitment I made to write a daily blog.  Having just surpassed 265 days and 8000 readers, I have been giving serious thought to this very question.  It was this line of inquiry that prompted me to consider what other writers who have gained a foothold in the literary might have done with today’s technology. 

Across decades and centuries, Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Charles Dickens, Tom Wolfe, Stephen King, and Alexander McCall Smith share success as writers.  Of note, each one of them used a serialized book form to publish many of their most beloved works. What is a blog if not a serialization of sorts?  For two years, I have been slowly researching and organizing my thoughts on a new project, a novel called Whately Prep.  

I decided to not merely take a leap, but plunge into faith.  I am going to begin writing Whately Prep.  It may float your boat, it may sink your ship. Let me know.  Hang in with me, readers, and let’s see where it takes us. Only when the last word is written will we know if it was a journey worth making.  

Book 1, Page 1

The drier tumbles the laundry around and around and around. I catch glimpses of colors and hints of fabrics.  Each tells their own story about my life.  I study the pattern, mesmerized by my afternoon at the Little League field with Julian (blue shirt, brown buttons) bumping up against my night with Declan (black negligee, cream lace).  Tangling together are Thompson’s jeans and Sarah’s Japanese-inspired onesie.  Darks, all of them are in this load, along with the blue and green comforter off of the Master bed on which Sarah’s bottle tipped, saturating it in lovingly pumped breast-milk.  

The light load was filled mostly with little, tiny people clothes in worn whites, seashell pinks and sun-bleached yellows.  Sarah is not yet a year old, but she is a prolific producer of laundry. The hand-stitched baby quilt that my mother made her does the spin with all the rest.  Her little sheets remind me of the Milkyway, running through a bright sky of lights.  Julian’s chinos, with holes and paint stains spin with Declan’s, indistinguishable in size: Julian wears boys’ size 10, Thompson wears size 14.  Recently, Thompson recruited their help painting the trim on the Lake House. My panties and bras, my secret vice, have never seen the inside of a dryer. Especially these big ones built for commercial loads.  The school makes them available for the students, but the laundry room is utterly deserted except for Sarah and me.  She sleeps in her stroller, lulled by the hum, thump, whir of the driers.  The students of Whately Prep have scattered for summer vacation. The summer school programs have not yet cranked into gear.  It is precisely the time I am most visited by ghosts.